Love Dare Day 36 Love is God's Word

Hmmm... I was reading the Bible faithfully every day. I had even picked up some of my theology books and wondered about starting to work through them. What happened?

The pain of life's ups and downs seems to have distracted me - along with my addictive nature. Coping with the struggles and tensions that have gone on with some of my daughters, and the pressures of work, have swamped me a little.

So what do I do? Normally my better response has been to write songs of worship, and sit and play the piano or guitar. And to pray. And I was praying quite a lot. And I was writing songs.

Then somehow I got distracted by games on my iPhone, such as Boggle, and soon afterwards I found the fun of Instagram. In between I read a few novels on the bus, using my Kindle. Prior to that I had been using the Kindle for my Bible reading. On the bus.

How easily do the thorns and weeds come up to choke the life out of what the Sower has sown!!! The parable is so true.

Time for me to restore my commitment to the Word. I still pray. Quite a lot. It's time to read the Word, sing, write songs again. Any time I stop doing what I was created to do, stress consumes me. I must be who I was made to be.

Read the Word. Daily. Worship. Daily. That's the best way I can love Liz too, by being who I should be, and bring blessing into our home by being in proper communion with God.

Day 36 (22-11-2011)

God's Word
Read daily. Live in it. Live under its authority. Let it guide my life.

Started reading with family last night after dinner. Just a text that had hit my heart.

Will be good if Liz is comfortable for a short read of the Word just together with her daily??

Day 36, 13th Jan

Love is God's Word

We need the guidance and empowerment of the Word.

Commit to reading it and feeding on it. Preferably together.

Day 35 LOVE IS ACCOUNTABLE

I really struggled again with this one. Love is accountable. In marriage we have to learn how to be accountable to each other, without losing our own identities. I don't think I have been very good at that. Most of my life I have given up who I am, and what I think, for the sake of keeping peace, or for acceptance, or out of fear of rejection. In codependent relationships I was a classic "enabler", needing to serve, to be "selfless", to make the sacrifices for the sake of the other person. I think I have been like that in home life, with my children, and even at work, where I would take up the slack for my staff or colleagues rather than gently requiring them to be accountable.

I guess that appearing to be accountable is a great way to avoid real accountability. And that is why, although I am good at doing things in love for Liz and our family and my colleagues, really I often(no: frequently)fail to accountably achieve the things I should be doing, the important things that are my responsibility.

This is my challenge, now that I have identified it like this. To stop trying to be accountable for everybody else, and become accountable - genuinely accountable - for the things of real importance in life, that I am responsible for.

I have struggled through this challenge and taken much longer with it than any other Day in the Love Dare. I couldn't go past it glibly, lying to myself that I had "done it". I actually couldn't see how to apply it in the best way to my own life. Now I do.